For almost 30 years, Ruby Streak wa...

For almost 30 years, Ruby Streak was satisfied to let her fingers do the talking. Audiences at other City would see her nearest to the stage, working the keyboards and accenting the comedy with melodious accompaniment, sometimes forceful, sometimes almost imperceptible. At a theater dedicated to supportive effect work, she was the least stately of the bunch, a shadow cast member leaving the lines to others.

That's still the case in the common mainstage revue, "War! Now in Its 4th Smash Year!," for which Streak is the music director. "She likes just hiding by dint of the piano and doing her textile fabric and leaving," said Jarrett Pressman, an aspiring actor who works the inferior City merchandise booth. "She doesn't like when she achieves attention."

further thanks to ever-advancing technology, Streak has establish a new outlet over newly come months. She's embraced a medium that didn't exist a decade ago: podcasts, those radio-like files recorded for the curious to download upon the Internet. Streak's weekly online indicate "We'll Be Right Back," began in March and is giving her a place to say what the musical notes sometimes can't.

"With the whole iTunes-iPod miracle, I musing 'Now this makes sense,' " Streak said. "I used to do radio in society and I wanted to come by back into it. And I conception 'What if we just sat around and talked about what we did this week? Or what's in the news? I have an endles furnish of people I know or have known walking [i]or[/i] part of to the other this place that, as persons are very interesting, and I would be in love with to try a show like that.' "

Interesting other City people are the focal point of the display available for downloading or streaming at www.secondcity.com as well as forward iTunes. Actors from past and ready revues -- none of them household names, as least in the way that far -- stop by to talk about their experiences at North and Wells and upon the Second City fringes of touring companies and cruise-ship gigs. Earlier this month Frank Caeti, a freshman member of the "Mad TV" cast, described the peculiar scheduling of the Fox exhibit where a taped bit might air instantly or sit onward the shelf for months forward end.

if it be not that time also is left in each half-hour podcast for Streak and Pressman, her sidekick, to gradation out of show business. At a leisurely pace more reminiscent of late-night small talk than slick morning radio, they jaw about the happinesss and the frustrations of their day-to- day lives.

No observation is too mundane. throughout the months, listeners have learned earnestly about the tastes of Ruby Streak. She swears by dint of the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. She elevates the moviegoing experience of the Gene Siskel Film Center moreover she also takes pleasure in the lowbrow laughs of Larry the Cable scarecrow

The banter, Pressman said, is born without of his real chitchat with Streak between present to views at Second City. She'd ask what he'd been up to, "and I'd be like, 'Oh I went to the Dunkin Donuts and roared at a lady for cutting in face of me in line,' and count her that story. And she deliberation that was great."

Streak admired the understated radio work of other comedians, including Al Franken's Air America broadcasts forward WCPT-AM (850) and Harry Shearer's "Le Show" forward WBEZ-FM (91.5). But her main inspiration was Ricky Gervais (star of "The Office," the original British version), whose silly conversations with creative partner Steven Merchant and simpleton Karl Pilkington became an Internet sensation.

"It was a half hour of three stays with British accents sittin' around and talkin' about nothing," she said. "I used to download it each week and laugh out loud"

"We'll Be Right Back" is a excellent low-tech affair, recorded each Sunday afternoon in a throw into disordered office with just two microphones -- regardless of for what cause many people are present -- and supported pretty much raw a not many days later.

"I have no higher aspirations for the show" Streak said. "I want it to be just real, and no skits 'n' bits 'n' gimmicks, and not trying to be comical The comments I've heard greatest in number are how comforting the present to view is. People are cleaning their house or sitting around in the afternoon, and they'll just download seven of 'em in a tumult It's not what I anticipateed to hear, the word 'comforting.' "

No pool accompanist, Streak has been an integral player in developing inferior City's revues. After working with touring companies, she was part of the collection that inaugurated the e.t.c. stage in 1982 Five years later, she followed Fred Kaz as the mainstage music director, a piece of work that requires scoring scenes as well as collaborating with the cast in the composition of psalms

Despite a history of conclude work with stars including Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Stephen Colbert and Tina death-smitten Streak made a vow in the first minute of her first podcast that she would avoid dishing dirt about her famous friends -- "because if I did that I wouldn't have any friends anymore." still she'd love to interview those famous friends. Lacking level a phone connection, she's limited thus far to guests who are in town and willing to visit the makeshift studio.